An Autumn for Crippled Children are exemplars of blackgaze, the increasingly popular subgenre that takes inspiration from black metal and shoegaze. Naturally, they're bound to get comparisons to Deafheaven and Alcest, and while they are contemporaries of both, they barely resemble one another. On the surface, they keep black metal’s fuzzy hum that Alcest and others have consciously dropped. The Dutch trio also exert much more of a post-hardcore influence, which is evident in their shorter songs. More significantly, there’s a damaged aspect to their music, with strings and synths breaking out haphazardly. The Long Goodbye is their fifth full-length release, following Try Not to Destroy Everything You Love, which honed their sound while keeping it endearingly messy. This album cleans up some more of the racket.
Unlike most bands who focus more on the gaze than the black, AAFCC still have a fairly abrasive guitar tone, evident in the opening rings of the title track. You can detect a melody beneath, but despite the dream pop influences, the guitars are more blinding than soothing. Even so, there’s variety to be found in Goodbye, an advantage brought on by shorter overall song lengths. "A New Form of Stillness" is jangle pop under the spell of the second wave—grimness comes after bounciness. There are plenty of black metallers who will jam New Order on the low, but the bassline from "Stillness" makes AAFCC's fandom public. "Endless Skies" (which has a vaguely trip-hop intro) and "The Sleep of Rust" are set within a depressive black metal framework, but the conflicting nature of grime and glory presented throughout Goodbye adds a dimension most sadsacks can’t comprehend. "She’s Drawing Mountains" may be the highlight of the album, as the melodies flex and compete with the onslaught of blackened drone.
Goodbye’s synth work is what raises AAFCC above the blackgaze fray. Like most black metal keyboards, they’re not technically complex and primarily function as ambient waves; where they differ with AAFCC is that they can be an antagonizing force in addition to the guitars. They don’t exactly intrude upon the music, but they don’t make a graceful entrance either. In "When Night Leaves Again" they’re particularly unsettling, as if encouraging the drums to lose their composure. "Only Skin"’s intro comes at you like bright lights and a refreshing bucket of water dumped on your worst hangover. The torrent that surfaces afterwards is almost a relief. There was a period in time when black metal bands boasted about not using keyboards—thankfully, AAFCC weren’t paying attention.
Listening to Goodbye, it’s evident that AAFCC are also students of Lifelover, a Swedish band who were pioneers in mixing post-punk and black metal. Before guitarist and leader B’s passing in 2011, they found a way to make Burzum’s buzz blend with the Cure’s basslines, and few have been able to match them since. Lifelover also had a knack for somber piano melodies that would drive the song more than the guitars on the forefront; AAFCC channel this at the end of "Converging Towards the Light", where the piano nearly overtakes the guitar during the final hurrah. AAFCC aren’t clones—they mutate Lifelover’s ethos into a gnarlier, and at the same time beautiful, sound.
